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Island Lake

An Off-Trail Lake with a Rocky Shore

Lake in Willamette NF, Mount Washington Wilderness, Cascade Range near McKenzie Bridge, OR

This Island Lake (there are several, even in the Willamette National Forest) can be reached by hiking partway up the Scott Mountain trail and then going cross-country to the west; or by following the old road between Scott and Melakwa lakes and going cross-country to the northwest. Either route gives the hiker the option of visiting a number of other small lakes and ponds along the way. Island Lake offers great swimming, huckleberries, and unlike nearby, very popular Tenas Lakes, almost guaranteed solitude. As the name suggests, there are a few rocky islet in the lake’s clear green water. Swim out to a small one to escape mosquitoes!

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As mentioned, there are a dozen other small lakes and ponds near Island Lake. Some are pictured below. In the Pleistocene ice ages, an icecap covered this part of the Cascade Range, and the lava bedrock was scraped, gouged, and excavated by the moving ice. Now the landscape is a confusing terrain of rock bluffs, ledges, and basins, covered by a mostly open forest of lodgepole pine, fir, and mountain hemlock. Navigating from one pond to the next, or even finding one of them, almost requires a GPS – or careful work with a good topographic map and a compass.

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Lake